TFTC: 3 Key Traits of Success You Can Master Too

Last week, I had the honour of MC’ing the 2018 TFTC launch in Canberra, on Thursday 3rd May 2018.

What is TFTC you ask? It stands for The Future Through Collaboration and is a Defence Industry collaboration formed in 2014. TFTC runs a mentoring program for women working in engineering and project management disciplines in the Defence Industry.

2018 is our 4th mentoring program. But this year’s launch was a bit special.

You see, we welcomed 130 Defence Industry members to the launch at Hyatt Hotel, Canberra, marked our 200th participant and welcomed the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne to deliver the Keynote Address.

A far cry from the program’s humble beginnings at the Defence Russell offices three years prior.

Sitting listening to our guest speakers, hearing Minister Payne’s key address and talking to our present and past participants, I walked away feeling a collective excitement for the future. Also, a collective sense of knowing what it takes to be successful. Successful in the sense of achieving what you want to. Three key concepts stood out from the conversations I had, and whilst having a mentor would certainly help, there are things we can all work on by ourselves to achieve success.

These are the three prominent traits of success that you can learn to master yourself.

1. Confidence

Promotions, actioned ideas or medallions awarded. All because people had the confidence to ask. The confidence to speak up. The confidence to face their fear of failing.

We all lack confidence at times. Success and confidence seem to go hand in hand. The more confident you are to offer up that idea, take on that challenge, put in for that promotion, the more chances you will have to be successful. The more success you have, the more confidence you gain.

Challenge yourself to put it out there. Whatever “it” is.

2. Make Development Your Priority

Lots of people assume it’s their managers role to develop them. And look, a good manager will certainly have some focus on your development. Ultimately though, it’s you that needs to be driving your development.

Easy in theory, hard in action. Take the first step and set one goal. Make it small – read that article you bookmarked a month ago. Then make it a weekly habit and build from there.

3. We Can Be What We Can See

Whilst not impossible to be something you can’t see, it’s a heck of a lot easier to picture yourself doing it if you’ve seen others do it before you.

Seek out examples of what your future self could be. If they’re not in your immediate network, venture out because they’re there. Learn as much as you can about how these role models got where they did and light your path to possibility.

A big thank you to the organisations supporting the 2018 TFTC Mentoring Program – Department of Defence, Royal Australian Navy, Airservices Australia, BAE Systems, Raytheon Australia, Jacobs, KBR, QinetiQ, Beca and Nova Systems.

Minister Payne captured it in her opening address when she said “I see The Future Through Collaboration mentoring program as a three-way win for the Defence sector. The program is a win for Defence industry, a win for Defence and a win for all the individuals involved”.